The Palm Sunday Tornado outbreak occurred on April 11-12, 1965, across the states of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin. 47 Tornadoes (15 significant, 17 violent, and 21 killers), wrecked havoc upon the land. It is the third deadliest tornado outbreak on record with 261 deaths, trailing the Super Outbreak which killed 315, and the March 18, 1925 outbreak which spawned the infamous Tri-State Tornado which killed 747.

The April 11-12th 1965 Tornado outbreak across the upper Midwest and Great Lakes marked a watershed moment in weather history. Due to the tragic loss of life and catastrophic damage that was observed in a following National Weather Service Storm Survey, a list of recommendations was formulated and eventually instituted. Many of these were ground breaking and well ahead of there time yet easily adapted based on the emergence of the telecommunications and computing age.

April 11 Event

1 death - One person died one month later from their injuries. 25 farms were affected, one of which had every building leveled. Pieces of a farm house were carried for over a mile.

F1

SE of New Hampton

Chickasaw, Fayette, Allamakee

1915

49.9 miles (80.3 km)

Wisconsin

F1

SE of Monroe

Green, Rock, Dane

2000

27.1 miles (43.6 km)

50 homes and 65 businesses destroyed or damaged and 40 were injured. Over 400 cars were damaged or destroyed.

F2

S of Watertown

Jefferson

2030

14.5 miles (23.3 km)

3 deaths - Deaths were from occupants of a car that was thrown. 28 others were injured. Structures were destroyed on 20 farms.

F1

S of Soldiers Grove

Crawford

2045

13.3 miles (21.4 km)

One barn was destroyed.

F1

W of Lake Geneva

Walworth

2150

1.9 miles (3.1 km)

Homes and structures were damaged near Williams Bay.

F1

NW of Elkhorn

Walworth

2155

1 mile (1.6 km)

One barn was destroyed.

F1

W of Tomah

Monroe

2214

2 miles (3.2 km)

Several farm buildings were destroyed.

Illinois

F4

Crystal Lake

McHenry, Lake

2120

9.1 miles (14.6 km)

6 deaths - Destroyed large sections of the town including a shopping mall. 45 homes were destroyed and 110 were damaged in a single subdivision. A few of the homes were completely swept away. Damage estimates were at about $1.5 million.

F2

N of Gurnee

Lake

2150

4.5 miles (7.2 km)

Several homes were damaged and two planes flipped at Waukegan Memorial Airport. Falling trees damaged some homes and two others lost their roofs.

F1

Geneva

Kane

2200

0.3 miles (0.5 km)

About a dozen homes were heavily damaged

F1

Zion

Lake

2204

0.5 miles (0.8 km)

Indiana

F3

NE of Knox to S of South Bend

Starke, Marshall, St. Joseph, Elkhart

2245

35.6 miles (57.3 km)

10 deaths - 30 cottages were destroyed and 70 others were damaged along Koontz Lake. 26 homes, one church and one high school were also destroyed. There were 82 people injured. Severe damage took place near La Paz and in the town of Wyatt.

F3

S of Crown Point to SE of Laporte

Porter, Laporte

2310

33.1 miles (53.3 km)

Several homes and barns were destroyed and 4 people were injured.

F4

W of Wakarusa to NW of Middlebury

Elkhart

2315

21.2 miles (34.1 km)

14 deaths - Tornado first touched down and caused severe damage in the Wakarusa area. Destroyed the Midway Trailer Park in Dunlap and numerous other homes in the Middlebury area. Some homes were completely swept away. Was photographed as a double tornado. A Goshen airplane wing was found 35 miles away in Centerville, Michigan. 1st of 2 tornadoes to hit the town of Dunlap. May have been an F5.

F4

NE of Goshen to W of Orland

Elkhart, LaGrange

2340

21.6 miles (34.8 km)

5 deaths - Dozens of homes were demolished in the Rainbow Lake and Shore areas south of Shipshewana, several of which were completely swept away. Some sources list 17 fatalities. May have been an F5.

F4

Manitou Beach-Devils Lake, Michigan (1st tornado)

Steuben, Branch, Hillsdale, Lenawee, Monroe, Washtenaw

0000

90.3 miles (145.3 km)

23 deaths - Starting just south of the Indiana-Michigan state line, this massive tornado caused extensive damage to the Manitou Beach region and areas southwest of Detroit. Many structures were destroyed, including a row of homes that were completely swept away and thrown into Coldwater Lake. First of two violent tornadoes to affect the same portion of Lower Michigan. Damage from the two tornadoes was difficult to separate. Damage path in Lenawee county extended up to 4 miles wide.

F4

SE of Lafayette to W of Russiaville

Tippecanoe, Clinton

0007

21.8 miles (35.1 km)

Several homes and other buildings were destroyed or damaged. Homes were completely leveled in Mulberry and Moran.

F4

SE of South Bend to NE of Shipshewana

St. Joseph, Elkhart, LaGrange

0010

37 miles (59.5 km)

36 deaths - 2nd violent tornado to strike the town of Dunlap in just over an hour. The Sunnyside subdivision was completely destroyed, with many homes swept away. The Kingston Heights subdivision was also devastated. 6 of the victims were killed when the tornado demolished a truck stop. Affected rescue efforts after the first tornado. Also was witnessed as a double tornado. Was initially rated an F5 but downgraded to an F4.

F4

Russiaville to SE of Marion and Greentown

Clinton, Howard, Grant

0020

48 miles (77.2 km)

25 deaths - Large sections of Russiaville, Greentown, southern Kokomo and Alto were destroyed. 90% of the structures in Russiaville were damaged or destroyed. The tornado was up to a mile wide when it struck Alto and Kokomo, where hundreds of homes were destroyed. Many homes were destroyed and swept away as the tornado struck Greentown, and multiple fatalities occurred in vehicles in that area. A hospital had its roof torn off south of Marion, and a shopping center was destroyed. Several homes were destroyed in Marion as well. Over 800 people were injured.

F4

SE of Crawfordsville to Arcadia

Montgomery, Boone, Hamilton

0050

45.7 miles (73.5 km)

28 deaths - 80 homes were destroyed and over 100 people were injured between Crawfordsville and Arcadia. Some of the most severe damage occurred near the towns of Lebanon and Sheridan. Tornado was up to a mile wide and threw cars over 100 yards. May have been an F5.

F4

W of Montpellier to N of Spencerville, OH

Blackford, Wells, Adams, Mercer, Van Wert

0110

52.5 miles (84.5 km)

4 deaths - F4 damage was observed in Keystone in Wells County. Severe damage also occurred in the Berne area, where a bowling alley, a lumber yard, and a grocery store were destroyed. Tornado crossed into Ohio where it destroyed five homes and damaged five others.

Michigan

F4

N of Grand Rapids

Ottawa, Kent

2254

20.6 miles (33.2 km)

5 deaths - 34 homes were destroyed and nearly 200 others damaged near the northern suburbs of Comstock Park and Alpine. Nearly 150 were injured and damage amounts were estimated at almost $15 million.

F1

N of Middleville

Allegan, Barry

0005

19.5 miles (31.4 km)

1 death - A trailer and 5 homes were destroyed while 25 others were damaged.

F3

NE of Kalamazoo

Kalamazoo

0030

14.2 miles (22.9 km)

4 homes were destroyed and 22 others damaged. 17 people were injured.

F3

Hastings

Barry

0040

14.1 miles (22.7 km)

15 homes were damaged and barns and garages were leveled.

F4

Manitou Beach-Devils Lake, Michigan (2nd tornado)

Branch, Hillsdale, Lenawee, Monroe, Washtenaw

0040

80.5 miles (129.6 km)

21 deaths - Second tornado to hit the same areas 30 minutes after being affected by the first tornado. Tornado leveled what was left standing from the first tornado. Total damage estimates from the two tornadoes were $32 million. Over 550 homes, 2 churches, a dance hall, and 100 cottages were destroyed in total. The two tornadoes also caused major damage in and around the towns of Onsted and Milan.

F4

N of Lansing

Clinton, Shiawassee

0115

21 miles (33.8 km)

1 death - Several homes were severely damaged or destroyed, one of which was swept away.

F2

W of Ithaca

Montcalm, Gratiot

0125

15.1 miles (24.3 km)

Several farm buildings and livestocks were destroyed. One home was nearly leveled.

F2

Alma (1st tornado)

Gratiot

0130

0.1 miles (0.16 km)

One of three tornadoes to strike the area where it caused damage to several buildings including the library, which had its roof torn off. A telephone repair facility was destroyed as well.

F2

Alma (2nd tornado)

Gratiot

0130

0.5 miles (0.8 km)

F2

E of Alma

Gratiot

0130

1 mile (1.6 km)

F2

SE of Bay City

Bay

0150

9.9 miles (15.9 km)

Tornado tore the roof off homes and an auto dealership. Trailers and barns were destroyed as well.

F2

SW of Unionville

Tuscola

0200

9 miles (14.5 km)

Damage to a firehall and lumberyard. Barns were also destroyed.

Ohio

F4

Northern Toledo

Lucas, Monroe

0230

5.6 miles (9.0 km)

18 deaths - Numerous homes in the northern suburbs of Toledo were completely destroyed, several of which were completely swept away. 5 people were killed when the tornado picked up a bus and slammed it upside down onto the pavement. Boats and cars were thrown onto and into buildings. A paint factory and department store were destroyed as well. Two people were killed on the Lost Peninsula in Michigan. There were reports of twin tornadoes during the event. Damage amounts were estimated at $25 million.

F4

N of Lima

Allen, Hancock

0230

32.5 miles (52.3 km)

13 deaths - Numerous homes and farms were destroyed along the track, some of which were completely obliterated.

F4

N of Sidney

Shelby

0300

18.4 miles (29.6 km)

3 deaths - Affected Anna, Swanders and Maplewood where 25 homes were destroyed and 20 others heavily damaged. Several train cars were derailed, and an automobile was carried for 200 yards.

F3

SE of Tiffin

Seneca

0315

15 miles (24.1 km)

4 deaths - Struck Rockaway, where 4 homes were leveled and three others were damaged.

F4

S of Oberlin to Strongsville

Lorain, Cuyahoga

0405

22 miles (35.4 km)

18 deaths - Extensive damage to Pittsfield and Strongsville. Pittsfield was nearly entirely destroyed and 6 homes were completely swept away there. Vehicles were thrown hundreds of feet and mangled. The tornado then struck Grafton at F2 strength, damaging homes and a car dealership before re-intensifying and striking the north side of Strongsville. In Strongsville 18 homes were leveled, some of which were cleanly swept from their foundations. 50 others were badly damaged in town. Damage amounts were estimated at $5 million. Was listed as an F5 according to meteorologist and tornado historian Thomas Grazulis. Also witnessed as a double tornado.

F1

S of Eaton

Preble

0415

0.1 miles (0.16 km)

F1

Brunswick

Medina

0430

8.2 miles (13.2 km)

One home was destroyed and several others were damaged in Brunswick.

F2

N of Delaware

Union, Delaware, Morrow

0430

22.2 miles (35.7 km)

4 deaths - Tornado struck the towns of Radnor and Westfield. 4 were killed in Radnor and 22 were injured in Westfield. 25 homes were destroyed.

F1

S of Cedarville

Greene

0450

0.1 miles (0.16 km)

F1

Ashville to Somerset

Pickaway, Fairfield,Perry

0530

38.4 miles (61.8 km)

Several farm buildings were destroyed along the path. A dozen trailers were destroyed at a sales lot in Dumontville.

Credits/References

A special thanks goes to the following: Blake Naftel for providing digitized photos and excerpts from this event, Jon Chamberlain for constructing and providing reanalysis weather maps of the event, construction of the Google kml file and excerpts from his ongoing research paper, Larry Camp (WB8R) for providing damage pictures and newspaper clippings from Branch county, Becky Monroe for her damage pictures from Marion, Ed Lacey Jr. for providing damage pictures from Grant county, Dick Loney for providing damage pictures from Elkhart county, Kevin Barker for providing damage pictures from the Coldwater Lake area in Branch county, Elkhart Truth, Goshen News, Mishawaka Times, Kokomo Morning Times, South Bend Tribune, Indianapolis Star, Cold Water Daily Reporter, Quincy Herald and Battle Creek Enquirer.

The day was going to be busy, it was apparent right from the start. A strong springtime storm system was developing over the Central Plains, and all the ingredients for severe weather were present. Warm, very moist air was flowing northward from the Gulf of Mexico with cool air rushing down from Canada to meet it. A jet stream streaked across the country from southern California to northern New England, passing right over the developing surface system.

Analysis of the 7 am surface chart showed a large red "L" drawn just about on the center of the map. Low pressure was deepening over western Iowa. From this low center a warm front reached east across central Illinois to central Indiana, and then snaked its way to South Carolina. In the other direction, a cold front dropped south to the Ozarks and then southwestward to the Big Bend region of Texas.

At 1045am, the Severe Local Storms Unit, SELS, in Kansas City issued a statement concerning the possibility of tornadoes that afternoon from northeast Missouri across central Illinois to north central Indiana.

Around 1pm, the SELS forecaster issued a tornado forecast (analogous to today's tornado watch). It covered central and northern Illinois and southernmost Wisconsin. Unbeknownst to him, the first two tornadoes of the day had touched down fifteen minutes earlier.

The cumulus had risen into thunderheads by the dinner hour, and at 12:45pm a funnel snaked its way out of one of those clouds, and hit the ground near the community of Tipton in Cedar County Iowa. It quickly grew and produced F4 damage to two dozen farms. A man near Lowden was battered by the swirling debris as he ran for his storm cellar. He died the next month.

Though it was apparent to most meteorologists that the weather on that eleventh day of April was going to be much more dangerous than usual, nobody imagined that the Lowden tornado would be the first of thirty-nine twisters to tear up the Midwestern landscape over the course of the afternoon and evening. Nobody dreamt that those tornadoes would carry death to 260 people.

At 2pm, the storm experts at SELS noticed that the jet stream was splitting into two branches, like a river flowing around an island. That island was located above and along the Illinois/Wisconsin border.

As the afternoon progressed, the tornadoes left Iowa behind in order to terrorize northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin. At 3:20pm a tornado dropped to the ground west of Jefferson, Wisconsin, and charged northeast. For the first half of its life it chewed through the farmland and forests of Jefferson County. It then came upon Wisconsin Route 16, where two cars were heading west towards Watertown. The tornado snatched the cars from the roadway and flung them through the air, to have them land as crumpled masses of metal, crushing the three people inside. Further along in the tornado's path, a woman was just starting to descend the stairs to her basement when she saw her house disintegrate above her head.

Seven minutes after the Jefferson County tornado touched down, another tornado reached earthward in McHenry County, Illinois. It would become one of the most famous tornadoes of the day. It began its eleven mile path of destruction on the southwest side of Crystal Lake, near the public golf course. It rampaged across the southeast side of town, destroying subdivision after subdivision. The tornado brushed the junior high school, and ripped apart the Lake Plaza Shopping Center. In one neighborhood, known as Colby's Home Estates, the tornado was a quarter mile wide. One hundred fifty-five homes were damaged ' forty-five of them beyond all repair. Five people were killed in the tempest. East of town, the tornado narrowed to a width of about 650 feet. It slid down a steep hillside without ever losing contact with the ground. The storm continued on and devastated the tiny community of Island Lake, killing one more person before it lifted a few minutes later. It would be classified as an F4. It lifted at 3:42pm.

Around 3:40pm, the Weather Bureau office in Chicago issued a tornado warning for the Crystal Lake Tornado.

At 3:50pm a tornado was born over Druce Lake in central Lake County, Illinois. It moved to just north of Gurnee, crossing Interstate 94, producing F2 damage. Today, this area is highly commercialized with malls and hotels, and heavily populated with new subdivisions full of huge, beautiful homes.

Ten minutes later the third Chicagoland tornado in half an hour touched ground near Saint Charles. The Chicago weather office put out a tornado warning immediately. Nobody was killed, and the twister was relatively weak. It did manage to severely damage a dozen homes as it crossed US Route 30.

Several minutes after 4pm the storm system spat out one more tornado in southwest Wisconsin, and then took a rest. For an hour and a half, no tornadoes fell to earth. However, the people at SELS knew that the siege wasn't over. Not by a long shot.

At 4:35pm a squall line reached from near LaCrosse, Wisconsin through Rockford to Champaign Illinois. SELS issued another tornado forecast. It was valid over the northern half of Indiana, northwest Ohio, and southeast Michigan.

Done with its brief nap, the storm system woke up with renewed vigor shortly before 6pm. Massive thunderstorms had erupted over northwest Indiana, and the first Hoosier tornado of the day crashed to earth. It touched down in Starke County a few miles southwest of a hamlet known as, appropriately, Hamlet. It crossed US Route 30 and tore directly across Koontz Lake. One hundred vacation cottages were severely damaged. As one of the cottages was blown to pieces, the man inside was lifted into the air and thrown to his death 600 feet away.

The people of Lapaz and Lakeville had been very happy in recent weeks. Lakeville High School had grown old, and was in need of repairs and modernization. Instead of fixing the old building, however, the two communities decided to build a brand new high school for their students. Residents of the area often drove by the construction site, and the progress of the new school was a common topic of conversation. It became even more of a topic of conversation after April 11. The tornado that wreaked havoc at Koontz Lake was huge and grey by the time it reached US Route 31 between LaPaz and Lakeville. It completely flattened the high school. Weeks of hard, backbreaking work were undone in a few seconds.

The people of Wyatt, Indiana, had been watching the southwest sky grow darker and darker. By the time it finally changed its hue from black to green, they knew trouble was coming. They gathered their families, maybe a flashlight or a few candles, and hurried into their basements and storm cellars in a state of controlled urgency. The tornado that had just ripped down all of the new boards at Lakeville High School had been moving across open country, and was hungry for another town. Wyatt was that town. The funnel swirled directly down Main Street in Wyatt, and destroyed twenty homes. Wyatt's already small population fell even further.

The South Bend weather office had issued a tornado warning for LaPorte, Starke, and Marshall counties two minutes before the Koontz Lake tornado touched down in central Starke County. The South Bend office had no radar, nor a remote radar feed. They were relying on phone conversations with radar operators in Chicago.

At 6pm the South Bend office received reports of tornadoes near Grovertown on US Route 30 in northeast Starke County, just north of Plymouth, and near Argos in southern Marshall County. The weather observer issued a Tornado Warning for Saint Joseph, Marshall, Elkhart, and Kosciusko counties.

At a quarter after six, as the incomplete Lakeville High School was splintering apart, another tornado touched down just fifteen miles to the east, near the Saint Joseph/Elkhart county line. It moved northeast to Wakarusa, where it took the life of a child.

The AP wire had been going crazy at the Elkhart Truth. Many weather bulletins had printed out that afternoon, and were collecting in a huge pile on the desk of Paul Huffman. Paul was sifting through the warnings when the editor told him to grab his camera and go out to document the extreme conditions. Paul was out of the door in a flash, and directed his car southeastward towards Goshen. Just before he left the newspaper, he learned from the South Bend weather office that a tornado had been reported northwest of Nappanee and was moving northeast. He knew that meant the tornado was heading for the northwest side of Goshen, so that's where he positioned himself. He sat in his car and waited.

As the sky grew blacker and blacker to his southwest, Paul wondered if he had underestimated what he had gotten himself into. He nervously fidgeted with the camera in his lap as he stared out his car window. The rain that had been falling began to mix with large hailstones that bounced madly on Paul's car and made a terrifying ding. Paul was shrinking back from the windshield in front of him when suddenly the hail and rain stopped. He was about to breathe a sigh of relief, when instead he gasped for air. Just off to his left was what he had been waiting for. It was a spinning mass of black cloud dragging itself along the earth. Bright sky was behind the funnel, and with no precipitation falling, Paul knew he would be able to get some great shots.

Mr. Huffman lifted the camera to his eye and began snapping pictures as quickly as he could. The funnel was moving to the right across his field of vision. As it approached the road about half a mile in front of him, it grew to such a massive size that it took up much of the frame. The tornado, in the midst of crossing the highway, decided to put on a spectacular show. Paul Huffman took one of the most celebrated tornado pictures of all-time as the monster before him morphed into a spectacular double funnel. One massive tornado just a couple of hundred feet behind another massive tornado, they charged northeast in tandem in front of Paul's lens. As they continued off to the right they combined into a chaotic mass of boiling, black cloud raking over Elkhart County.

The small community of Dunlap, made up primarily of mobile homes and modest houses, lay just southeast of Elkhart on US Highway 33. The tornado Paul Huffman was photographing must have had some sort of vendetta against sleepy Dunlap, for it was on the edge of town when the tornado developed its incredible double funnel structure. The twins chewed through the southeast side of Dunlap, destroying eighty percent of the Midway Trailer Court and killing ten people. It tossed planes around upside down in the air and ripped their wings off as it skimmed by Goshen Airport. One of the airplane wings was later found near Centreville, Michigan, thirty-five miles away from Goshen, and nearly twenty-five miles beyond the end of the tornado's path!

At 6:25pm one tornado had just finished destroying Lakeville High School in Saint Joseph County, a second tornado had just killed a child in Wakarusa in Elkhart County, and a third tornado had just dropped to earth a few miles south of Valparaiso in Porter County. This third tornado would go on to produce near-F4 damage to homes southwest of Wanatah, and would destroy homes near Kingsford Heights, while the other two tornadoes were simultaneously producing F4 damage in Wyatt and Dunlap.

Although he had no idea at the time, as Paul Huffman was watching the double funnel cross Route 33 in front of him, another monstrous twister was spinning to the ground nine miles behind him near Millersburg. This new tornado struck off to the northeast, devastating the Amish counrtryside of eastern Elkhart County and the northwest half of Lagrange County. As the storm passed south of Shipshewana it flattened the quiet communities of Shore and Rainbow Lake, doing near-F5 damage as it reduced large farm houses to nothing more than a foundation.

The South Bend weather office issued several products during the day's eighteenth hour describing the locations of the tornadoes swarming through the area. Finally at 6:50pm the exasperated observer issued the following statement:

Reports of tornadoes and funnel clouds have become so numerous that it is impossible to keep track of them. Warnings should therefore exist throughout the central northern portion of Indiana. The problems have been intensified by telephones being out in many areas and it is impossible to notify many people.

While the South Bend observer was sending that statement, an F4 tornado started satisfying its appetite in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where it ruined the property and lives of many residents.

The unique intensity of the weather system in the Midwest that Palm Sunday was about to be demonstrated ten minutes later as an unusual event began to take shape in the northwest corner of Steuben County, near the community of Orland, Indiana. An intense tornado formed and quickly crossed the border into Michigan. It struck the village of East Gilead squarely, and then continued on to destroy homes along the shore of Coldwater Lake, filling the water with debris. When it reached the opposite shore of the lake, a second tornado formed just five miles to the southwest near Kinderhook. The two tornadoes took off together in the same direction along the same path, so that anybody hit by the first twister would get hit by the second one several minutes later. By the time the first tornado passed south of Hillsdale, its friend was about thirty minutes behind it. The duo roared across the countryside producing F4 damage in a swath over a mile wide.

In western Lenawee County, Michigan, about fifty people were attending Palm Sunday church services at the Manitou Beach Baptist Church. When they arrived at church, rumors of tornadoes peppered the conversations as the crowd gathered together outside the front doors of the building. At 7pm the service started, and the congregation filed in. Faint thunder was heard stirring in the distance. As the service progressed, the thunder became loud enough that it shook the church. The people began thinking more about the weather outside than what they were hearing from the pulpit. The thunder developed into a low, steady rumble. The church-goers noticed the rumble before they even realized it. They had been feeling the vibration in their feet before the sound actually reached their ears and alerted them to the fact that something was happening behind them. As the service was nearing its end, the rumbling sound that had been distracting the parishoners grew deafeningly loud. The stained glass windows shattered. People began screaming in their surprise and terror. Plaster rained down on them as mothers grabbed their children and everybody began pushing each other into the aisles. The shrieking wind blew the church doors open, forcing the people inside to bend over to nearly a ninety degree angle as they fought the wind, rain, hail, and debris in order to reach the stairs to the basement. Half of them never made it. The church folded and collapsed upon them, burying over two dozen people in the rubble.

Forty minutes later the second tornado roared through, but there was nothing left for it to destroy, other than some vacation cottages along the shore of Manitou Lake.

As the storm continued across Lenawee County, the twin tornadoes, combined with powerful downburst winds, created a damage path up to four miles wide from one end of the county to the other. The wind recorder at Tecumseh, in the northeast part of the county, recorded a wind gust of 151 mph when the south fringe of the first tornado passed by. Fifty-five minutes later the second tornado hit the airport directly and gave a wind gust of 75 mph. Ten minutes later, straight-line winds rushing into the backside of the thunderstorm gusted to 70 mph.

The horrific supercell finally took its two destroyers back up into the cloud in northern Monroe County, just west of Lake Erie and southwest of Detroit. The second, weaker tornado had fallen back to about an hour behind the first one. Together they traveled ninety miles, killed forty-four people, and injured 612.

Of the counties that these tornadoes hit, only Hillsdale was warned for. The Lansing weather office thought the storm would move to the northeast rather than the east, and as a result they warned for the counties to the north of the eventual track. The Lansing office had good reason to forecast a northeast movement, since every other tornado in the border area that day had indeed moved in a northeast direction; as was this pair of tornadoes, until it reached central Hillsdale County and made a turn to the right.

As the Manitou Beach Tornado was just crossing the Michigan/Indiana line, hail two inches in diameter -- about the size of a hen's egg -- was battering Lafayette, Indiana. Another tornado formed a few miles southwest of the city. This tornado passed through mostly rural country, although it did produce F4 damage in northwest Clinton County between Cambria and Moran. This tornado was significant in that it did not form in the same area as the previous tornadoes in Michiana. It developed in a whole new supercell. A supercell that would grow, evolve, and become one of a new front of storms that would rake across central Indiana about a hundred miles south of the storms in the Michigan/Indiana border area.

Three minutes after the tornado began near Lafayette, the most powerful tornado ever to hit northern Indiana struck ground. It began several miles south of South Bend and set off to the northeast, heading directly for...Dunlap.

Paul Huffmans's tornadoes crushed the Midway Trailer Court around 6:30pm. As the storm continued on beyond the town, the residents cautiously crept out from their damaged homes to survey the destruction and to assist their injured neighbors. Rescue crews arrived almost immediately from Elkhart and Goshen to tend to the hurt. A constant stream of ambulances, fire trucks, hearses, and volunteer's cars filled the highway as they shuttled people to hospitals. The tornado had hit, and the people of the area had paid a terrible price to it, but at least it was done. The storm had moved on, and once you're hit by a tornado it's supposed to be over. After the tornado, the weather is supposed to calm down. So when the southwest sky began to fill with lightning before many of the tornado victims had even been found yet, the crowds at Dunlap groaned. They groaned not because they feared another tornado, but because they didn't want to get rained on. But rain it did. The rain slashed down on rescuers and victims alike, chilling people to the bone and stinging their faces. Soon the rain began falling nearly sideways as the wind increased. At half past seven, the people in the unassuming community of Dunlap had their worst fears realized ' again. A tornado even more powerful than the first one ripped into town. It leveled houses to the ground. It destroyed the Sunnyside and Kingston Heights subdivisions. Anything left standing after the first tornado was not only leveled, but swept clean from the surface of the earth.

Its need of destruction not yet satiated, the twister moved on and destroyed a truck stop at the corner of routes 20 and 15 where it took six more lives. The horror finally lifted back into the sky in the northwest corner of Lagrange County near Stone Lake. With this tornado, the storms along the state line had finally blown themselves out, and would produce no further major tornadoes.

It was not a good day for the poor observer at the South Bend weather office. At 7:13pm he issued this statement:

Broadcasting stations are urged to ask people to not call the Weather Bureau unless they have weather to report. We have had numerous poor joke calls and they tie up the lines.

At the time that statement was issued, three different areas of storms were producing tornadoes: one in central Michigan, one along the Indiana/Michigan border, and one in central Indiana.

The people of Crawfordsville had been watching the sky that evening with great apprehension. Fathers were pointing to the sky and telling their sons how to read the clouds. At twenty after seven a twister came to the ground on the southeast side of town, sending everybody rushing inside to safety. The tornado spared Crawfordsville, but had different plans for many other locations in Montgomery, Boone, and Hamilton counties. It produced F4 damage near Smartsdale as it leveled a home to its foundation, killing a person inside. The funnel grew to a mile in width as it moved northwest of Lebanon, and it destroyed over four dozen homes and killed eleven people, six of whom were from the same family. Two cars were thrown a hundred yards from the roadway resulting in four more deaths. The death and destruction then continued into the Arcadia area, forty-five miles east of Crawfordsville.

The news media had been making the Crystal Lake and Dunlap tornadoes famous that evening. At 7:30pm, when the second Dunlap tornado was crushing that town, another tornado was touching down near the Howard/Clinton County line, and would become just as well-known. Within seconds of reaching ground it blew into a community of nine hundred souls known as Russiaville. When it was done tearing up the town, ninety percent of its buildings had been damaged or destroyed. A few miles further along, the tornado became a mile-wide wedge that devastated a hundred homes in Alto, where the Maple Crest Apartments lost their entire second floor. The tornado continued to strengthen, and reached F4 intensity as it pummeled Greentown where eighty homes were destroyed and ten people killed. Debris from Greentown was spread out across the Indiana landscape.

The tornado continued to the east, paralleling the Norfolk and Southern Railroad. Fortunately the tornado was just far enough south so that it missed the towns that were strung out along the tracks.

The people in the VA Hospital in Marion had heard that a tornado was charging through Grant County, though they didn't know for sure if it was going to hit Marion or not. They soon got their answer when the roof of the hospital was ripped off. Then the Panorama Shopping Center was blown down, and almost immediately was converged upon by looters. Thirty-one electric company transmission towers were toppled. An astounding 835 people had been injured by this tornado, 600 of them in Howard County. Twenty-five were killed.

The funnel lifted near Arcana. As the funnel lifted, the weather office at Fort Wayne issued a Tornado Warning for the counties of Grant, Blackford, Jay, southern Wabash, Huntington, Wells, and Adams. The parent thunderstorm proceeded on to the east, and after only about ten minutes decided to put down another tornado, along the same path.

The tornado steamed across farmland near Roll, and then struck Keystone with F4 strength, killing two people. It continued to the northeast and hit Linn Grove, causing two more fatalities. As it hit Linn Grove, the weather office in Fort Wayne issued the following statement:

The Weather Bureau radar at Baer Field shows a strong hook echo about five miles west of Berne Indiana and moving eastward. Residents in the Berne area should take immediate precautions for personal safety for a strong possibility of a tornado in the next 30 to 60 minutes.

In reality, the tornado skimmed the north side of Berne about six minutes after that statement was sent out. The Fort Wayne office had no idea that an F4 tornado had already been on the ground for twenty-five miles in Grant County, and for thirty-five miles before it finally reached Berne. Twenty-nine people had died and nearly nine hundred were injured when the Fort Wayne office sent out that message.

The twister set its sights on Ohio, and moved into the Buckeye State south of Willshire. Five homes were leveled flat to the ground, and a mother and her son were killed. The tornado then lifted. As the tornado dissipated, the Fort Wayne weather office sent this product:

The Weather Bureau radar at Baer Field shows the strong hook echo now just a mile or two south of Van Wert and weakening in intensity. Hold the line a minute for a definite report on tornado at Berne. The tornado touched down at Berne three miles west and one mile northeast. Several houses destroyed and ambulances are rushing to scene. Tornado hit between ten and fifteen minutes ago which would be between 8:50 and 8:55 PM EST.

In the days following the Marion and Linn Grove tornadoes, several witnesses would report having seen two tornadoes in tandem push through the area. The known existence of twin tornadoes at Dunlap and from Hillsdale to Monroe County Michigan lend credence to these reports.

While the weather was wreaking havoc in central Indiana, the storms in central Michigan continued to produce tornadoes. The Michigan tornadoes were weaker; mostly doing F2 damage. However they were still quite widespread and resulted in fifty-three fatalities that evening. Before 9pm Lansing, Michigan reported 63mph winds with 3/4-inch hail. Several minutes later half-inch hail fell on Ypsilanti and Detroit. Detroit Metropolitan Airport received an inch of rain in thirty minutes.

At 9:20pm, the Fort Wayne office issued the following unfortunate statement:

Attention WOMO Please use emergency action notification signal. Marion Indiana reported through Fort Wayne signal department at 9:07 PM EST that three tornadoes had struck the city of Marion with extensive damage. The Veterans Administration Hospital was one area hit. Request for ambulance assistance has been requested from Muncie and Anderson. The Fort Wayne Weather Bureau places these counties under alert for eastward movement that struck Marion. These counties are Wells Adams Blackford and Jay Counties. Residents in these counties should remain on the alert for the next 60 minutes.

The tornadoes Fort Wayne was warning for had actually hit Marion a full hour and twenty minutes earlier. Apparently the Fort Wayne weather observer thought that the report he received from Marion was saying that the tornadoes had just occurred. The Fort Wayne observer then sent a message to the Columbus Ohio weather office stating that a tornado had hit Marion at 9:07pm, and the Columbus weather office then issued its own statement with that same erroneous information. In reality the storm had hit Marion around 8pm. At the time of Fort Wayne's warning, the line of storms on radar was well east of Marion, extending from Paulding and Van Wert counties into Adams and Jay counties.

At 9:30pm the Fort Wayne office lost power, and was out of service for an hour. By the time the office got its electricity back the storms were well east into Ohio.

In northwest Ohio a thunderstorm had blown up and managed to put a tornado down on the northwest side of Toledo. As the tornado pushed across the edge of town, it caused near-F5 damage in the Creekside Addition as fifty homes were razed. The twister crossed the Detroit-Toledo Expressway where it picked up a bus and then slammed it down onto the pavement, killing four people inside. When the tornado moved into the northern section of Maumee Bay at the western tip of Lake Erie, it picked up cars from the land and plucked boats out of the water, and sent them hurling into buildings along the shore.

The Toledo tornado was never warned for. The only mention the storm got was from the Columbus weather office ten minutes before the twister struck: "A moderate to heavy storm was about ten miles west of Toledo". The storm was within sight of both the Fort Wayne and Detroit radars, and passed about 15 miles north of the Toledo weather office. The Columbus office learned of the damage around a quarter to eleven, though it still had not yet been confirmed that it was caused by a tornado.

Shortly after 10pm a tornado derailed fifty-three cars of a sixty-eight unit train in Shelby County, Ohio.

A few minutes past 11pm the second, an F5 tornado touched soil. It fell to earth in western Lorain County, Ohio, four hours after the Dunlap F4 and 180 miles almost due east. The tornado was only about five minutes old when it roared into Pittsfield. Seven of the fifty residents were killed and, as the Cleveland weather office put it in a damage survey the next day, "the destruction was total". As it approached Grafton is was eight hundred feet wide and gave up to F2 damage to two hundred homes. In the tornado's twentieth mile, according to Cleveland, "the storm appeared to have been split into two paths about ' mile apart. Large trees laying 50 feet apart were lying in opposite directions." The tornado displayed its F5 intensity in Strongsville, where homes literally vanished. The tornado rose back into the clouds just two minutes later.

The last tornado of the Palm Sunday Outbreak occurred at 12:30 am Monday morning. It moved along a thirty mile path southeast of Columbus, producing scattered F2 damage.

In the half-day that the event lasted, twisters tasted the ground from Cedar County, Iowa eastward 450 miles to Cuyahoga County, Ohio, and from Kent County, Michigan southward two hundred miles to Montgomery County, Indiana. Six states and four dozen counties had tornadoes within their borders. Fifteen weather offices had a busy Sunday as the tornadoes swept through their areas of responsibility.

It had been twelve hours unlike any the region had ever seen before. Nature's most powerful force was displayed with appalling brutality as buildings were reduced to rubble, years of hard work were obliterated in a matter of seconds, and possessions were scattered for miles across the countryside. Twelve hours of terror, of destruction, of death. Tornadoes grew to over a mile wide and F4/F5 intensity as they scoured the landscape clean of human endeavor.

Personal Stories

John Curran: I was a GS-5 Observer/Briefer at the Fort Wayne Weather Bureau Airport Station on April 11, 1965, at the time of the infamous Palm Sunday tornado outbreak. I worked the day shift, 8 AM to 4 PM. Friends and I had attended Saturday night a dance in one of the northwest Ohio towns that regularly held public dances. I had gotten much less than a full night's sleep. When my relief showed up just before 4 Pm I was urged to go home as I was due back in at midnight for a quick turnaround. At the end of my shift no severe weather was in the Ft. Wayne County warning Area. The severe weather was still a distance to the west, as I recall.

I went home and crashed into bed. My roommate came back around d 10:30 PM woke me up and exclaimed, "John, what the hell is going on?" "What do you mean, what is going on, I've been asleep!" He said, "All the TV stations are off the air most places are without power." I turned on the radio and found one local station with a very weak signal operating on emergency power. Fort Wayne's power was provided by two utility companies. City Power and Light generated their electricity locallyâ?¦those customers did not lose power. The other utility, Indiana and Michigan, lost their high voltage transmission lines due to the tornadoes. At the time it was said there were 13 high voltage transmission lines that were the source for I & M's Fort Wayne customers, but they had all been severed. I don't know if that number is correct, but none of the I & M customers in Ft. Wayne had power. It was a crazy quilt patternâ?¦some neighborhoods had power, some didn'tâ?¦even houses within the same block may or may not have dad powerâ?¦depending on which utility served the house. It created a very bad public relations period for the I & M customers, and there was pressure to convert the whole city to City power and light as it took months for the city to fully recover its power. I digress.

When I got to the office for the midnight shift, I found the electronics technician Arnie Koch had strung an extension cord down the hall from the FAA Flight Service Station, which had power. There were no lights in the officeâ?¦the only lights were from a couple of teletype machine that Arnie had powered up. Somehow I got through the night improvising as I went along to transmit the observations. I don't remember if the office had an emergency generator, if it did, it didn't work, or was woefully underpowered. As I got off work, there was a general appeal being made for blood donations. I went to the donation center on my way home, but was told I could not donate, due to my lack of sleep.

The following day, Tuesday, April 13, 1965, I had a scheduled day off, but accompanied the office's Meteorologist in Charge, Clyde Downs, and his wife on a day long storm survey. We drove to the southern part of the county warning area and picked the storm track in southern Grant County. The Palm Sunday tornadoes were long tracked tornadoes and this track had originated to the west of Russiaville. Memories that stand out are a mobile home court in the south part of Marion. The mobile homes looked like they had been tossed into a child's playboxâ?¦lying every which way, splintered beyond recognition, some on top of one another, some upside down and some with only the steel frame remaining. Horrible. For the rest of my Weather Service career I worried about people living in mobile homes in the path of a tornado.

From south Marion and Gas city we followed the path east northeast through the farmland and small communities. We interviewed farmers and town residents, asking about the time of occurrence and what they saw and did. One young man told me he was trying to outrace the tornado, I believe he may have been on highway 18 east of Marion. He saw debris, like small stones passing him from behind; he looked at his speedometer and it was 90 mph! He realized he was not going to outrun the tornado and made a wise decision to turn to the right or to the south and thus lived to tell the tale. While the forward movement of the deadly Palm Sunday tornadoes was approaching 60 mph, it is my belief that the debris the young man saw was being ejected from the tornado at the speed of the rotating tornadic winds, like shot from a cannonâ?¦at speeds of 200 mph or more.

It was in Bern, Indiana that the Palm Sunday tornado made the most impressionable memory. We approached the town from the south on Highway 27. It was here that the immensity of the storm was most visible, as in rural areas the width is not easily marked. The damage kept getting more and more severe as we drove north. The memory, well actually, two memories were seared into my mind. On the west side of Highway 27 there was a stretch of three or four homes that were totally destroyedâ?¦the only thing left was the concrete slab, with perhaps a bathtub or toilet bolted to the floor. But, most remarkable for me, was there was no debrisâ?¦the storm had made a clean sweep! I always remembered this and often commented in spotter talks that if you are going to be hit by and EF4, pray it is an EF5 and you won't have the cleanup costs. The second memory about Berne was how the Amish community pulled together. Here it was Tuesday afternoon, less than 48 hours after the Palm Sunday outbreak, and Amish carpenters were already busy reframing the homes that had been badly damaged. I've since learned, "That's what they do!" They drop everything and help their neighbors. I saw enough tornado damage this day to last me a lifetime. I had seen damage before growing up in Nebraska, but never on the scale of EF5s, a half mile wide or more, racing through the countryside at speeds up to 60 mph. The old WSR-3 radar displayed a prominent hook as the tornado approached Berne, IN. Clyde Downs, the Meteorologist in Charge, immediately issued a tornado warning for Berne based on the radar echo, but I believe the tornado had already crossed into Ohio by the time the warning was transmitted on the Weatherwire. In addition, the receipt of a phone call of a tornado in Marion resulted in a tornado warning being issued for a tornado that had passed through an hour earlier.

The personnel at the FT. Wayne Weather Bureau Office did as well as well as could be expected with its warnings with the tools provided at the time. There were some serious lapses and it may be seen as bordering on incompetence. But one has to remember that the radar at the time was the WSR-3, built in WWII for the purpose of detecting aircraft. The small scope had a rapid decay rate with no map background, which made for a time consuming process of outlining the echoes on onion skin paper. The storm intensity displayed was purely a relative analog display. In short, the radar was primitive, with poor resolution and low powered. The Weather Wire, which fed forecasts, warnings, etc, to the news media, operated at 60 wpm, or was it 75? Input to the Weather Wire was either raw through a keyboard, or through five level Baudot paper tape, which had to be cut "in the blind." The Warning Preparedness program that we have today was nearly nonexistent. The trained spotter network was primitive, mostly nonexistent.

The Palm Sunday tornado outbreak is an example of how good can come from something bad. The Weather Bureau, now the National Weather Service, has, with strong taxpayer support, done a magnificent job of upgrading the entire warning process, from equipment, to manpower, to training and strengthening relationships with the media, law enforcement, and the general public.

John Curran
Retired Meteorologist in Charge,
Indianapolis National Weather Service

Ron Przybylinski: I experienced this terrible severe weather event day in the South Bend Indiana area. I was age 11 and remembered this day quite well. My family went to Palm Sunday services that morning. I remembered scattered showers and thunderstorms that morning after church services. Surface winds were from the south and southwest approximately 15 to 25 mph maybe with gusts as high as 30 mph. After the storms - full sunshine and windy conditions continued.

That afternoon after dinner we visited a famous ice cream restaurant called "Bonnie Doones" then we went home. We then watched television and at that time the local television stations were show in bold letters "Tornado Watch" or Tornado Warning." No radar data shown at that time on TV. Basic white background with black large letters.

I remembered this first of three lines of scattered convective storms. It was scattered storms and not a continuous line of storms. I believe a few of these storms - at that time we never heard of the word supercells. But a few of these storms were producing tornadoes. What was really interesting is that the skies were clear blue after the passage of each of the three convective line. Not much in the way of cirrus anvils. The 4th line of storms were nearly a solid line of supercells. I believe I observed about 8 to 10 of them as the line passed. We were watching the show "Lassie" on the local CBS station. I know a few of you may not know this show. Just as the fourth line of supercellls passed we experienced "golf ball size hail." at our home and went down to the basement. We were lucky that we just experienced hail damage. My family's house was located on the southwest side of South Bend. Just before we hit the basement we heard of a tornado at Koontz Lake Indiana (far northwest Marshall county Indiana). And then on the local CBS station the local NWS weather office stated that in words - "there were so many tornado reports that it was hard to keep track of them." We went down the basement after this.

Once the line of supercells passed on through we heard of the damage to farmsteads - and damage in Lapaz and Wyatt Indiana in southeast St. Joseph County Indiana then we heard of damage to a nursing home in Elkhart County Indiana where I believe there were several fatalities. I remembered the local CBS station (Channel 22) was showing taped video of the damage and interviewing folks who were affected by the destructive tornadoes.

The following weekend my Dad and Mom took us down to Koontz Lake Indiana and we observed approximate 150 yard wide of trees completely snapped and uprooted east of Indiana highway 23. There was also damage to a number of structures in the town of Koontz Lake as well. What was interesting is that someone reported a funnel cloud the following Sunday when my parents took us down to observe the damage. We left immediately. One addition, I remembered that President Johnson maybe a week later toured the damage area south of South Bend and over in Elkhart county Indiana.

This major severe weather event sparked my interest in meteorology from this time on. I have a picture of the twin tornadoes near U.S Highway 33 by Paul Huffman from the Elkhart Truth took south of the twin tornadoes. This was given to me by a friend over 20 years ago where this person knew Paul.

Just wanted to share with everyone my experiences on this day which I will always remember.

Ron Przybylinski
NWS St. Louis SOO - 04/11/2014

Sharon Barhydt: My husband was a kid in Goshen watching this happen. He told me how they could see the mobile homes going up in the air and exploding at a park that I believe he said was Midway Mobile Home Park.

Robert Owen: This took the chicken coop off of the foundation on the farm house I grew up in and my mother was pregnant with me and has told me amazing stories about the destruction the day this happened and her and dad lived through and drove through the devastaion and dad helped clear roads and check to see if people survived. Pretty wild.

Linda Kay Klinedinst: Me and my younger brother was standing on our front porch along with our parents and it got really black out. After the Tornado went through Koontz Lake and tore all of the houses up, my Parents, my younger brother and I went for a drive through Koontz Lake to see all of the damage from the Tornado. A Police Officer asked my Dad if he had a Flash Light because he loaned a driver his flashlight. My Dad gave this Police officer a Flashlight and he thank my Dad. I can still see the damage that the Tornado did to Koontz Lake to this day. I will never going to forget it. I wish I had pictures but I don't.

Julie Gaspar: My mom was pregnant for my brother I was 2. I remember my dad carrying me and running while big hail balls where everywhere. My great Uncle was a volunteer for concord fire department.

Wanda Sue Cole Landrum: My Dad took us to see the Devastation at K Koontz Lake..houses sitting in the middle of the lake, ripped apart in two..it looked like a doll house-- you could see every room, every floor.

Cris Dunlap Ramsey: Two sets of great grandparents who lived around the country corner from each other near Cairo, Ohio were significantly affected. One set got into the basement just in time but lost everything. Someone near Cleveland found their wedding postcard and mailed it back to them somehow.The other set died (grandma that day, rolled in the corn stubble and grandpa died about 6 days later). They had just had a wedding anniversary party and their kids had left not long before the storm. Grandpa had just gotten out of the hospital sometime that week before the storm.

Kathy Selzer Miller: I was in Fort Wayne when the tornadoes were going on. We were watching the Ed Sullivan Show with the Herman's Hermits performing and the tv signal was lost and then the power went out for 3 days. But because Fort Wayne had their own City Utilities at that time, the schools still had power. We went to school Monday and Tuesday and came home to houses with no power since that was provided by I&M. Fort Wayne long ago sold City Utilities to I&M and if this ever happened again all the city would be without power. No destruction in Fort Wayne, but I know there was damage south of Fort Wayne.

Larry Haag: I remember devastation like I've never seen before. Riding around with parents and seeing our friends house totally blown away from the ground up. It was like a bomb had went off.

Jim Beck: We got chased on Kern Rd coming from South Bend, Dad couldn't go any faster so we pulled into a house and i remember Dad running in the front door. We all made the basement with seconds to spare. Dad used to own 1 of the mobile home parks around Goshen and was afraid it was ours that was destroyed. Dad went to Goshen on a farm tractor to get around downed trees , we slept in the basement. I hate tornadoes to this day !

Scott Taylor: My dad and mom lived in house just west of Hillsdale said very warm day and storm moved in late afternoon got pretty scary wind, dark, hail, lots of lightning. Dad was taking my sister after first storm to her moms near pittsford. On way back to hillsdale was near Osseo, Mi second storn moved in. Had to pull over because 75+ mph winds rocking his car and told me lighting bolts hitting ground so intense hurt his eyes put sun glasses on. This was when we estimated f4 about 2-3 miles north of his location. He was just a few miles se of Baw Beese Lake as F4 tore houses apart. Learned also 2 major tornado followed each from one end of hillsdale county to the other ne section of county. One tornado just before it was about to enter the city of Hillsdale made a slight right turn and just missed city ended up hitting Baw Beese Lake and summer cottage. These sane tornadoes decimated Devils Lake, Michigan and in a movie, book called Night of the Twisters. Clip on you tube. I have since bought a small cottage near devils lake which survived but business just east of house destroyed (possible satillite tornado) and church just west of my house destroyed. A picture in night of the twisters can see my house with all windows broke out and all the trees around it uprooted. As well as a car in same photo wrapped around tree base (two teenage boys tragically died in this car).

LuAnn Mouton: I was only 6 years old then, and I remember standing in our yard with my stepdad watching the tornado across the field from us, and my mom was in the basement yelling at us to come inside!

Sandra Emerick: I was only 2yrs old when Palm Sunday hit. I don't remember anything. But my late father during that time worked for General Telephone, he went to help those in need. He helped with rescue efforts. My late mother helped with the Red cross. She served water and food to those in need.

Victoria Dynes-Beer: I was 5 and we lived in Geneva IN south of Berne IN. We were coming home from church in my grandfather's Chevy Impala convertible. We were listening to WOWO when the warning sounded. We were watching the sky and saw the twister coming us at. Grandpa stopped at the Trees Drive In (root beer stand) as we had nowhere else to go. I remember the car rocking in the wind. We were fortunate that the tornado stayed north of us but the devastation afterward was immense. Whole factories gone. I get very anxious when I hear the sirens or the watches and warnings issued.

Lynn Stair-Harshaw: I remember being wrapped up in a blanket like a burrito, mom watching out the door from our mobile home, we lived near Van Buren at my grandmas property. Mom said if we didn't have time to make it up to grandmas basement we'd dive into the ditch and she wanted me covered up...we could see it from a distance. Then we went to my other grandparents farm on 400E just outside of Marion. Driving up the lane we could see there was a 2x4 sticking out of a huge rock on their property and several farm equipment machines turned upside down like toys, windmill twisted and bent in half and the barn was missing three sides and the roof, dad mentioned at the time he couldn't figure out how it had left 1 wall standing. The house wasn't damaged but all the other buildings were...still amazing looking at pictures and the damage that occurred on that day.

Darlene Rowe Howard: That looks like the twin tornadoes that ran down highway 20, next day my husband and I drove there and the tornadoes wiped out several chicken farms. There were feathers for miles. There were houses hit near Wolcottville with one wall gone and stuff in the rooms looking like they were never touched. I still don't like storms to this day.

Bruce Hamrick: I was 7 years old and lived near Chattanooga, Ohio. My grandparents from Mendon were visiting. We were watching Ed Sullivan and we lost the signal on TV. Then we got a grainy signal and the announcer on Channel 15 told us there were tornadoes in Elkhart and other areas and moving east. My Grandparents decided to head home. My parents and us 3 kids then went 1/4 mile down the road to my other grandparents home because they had a basement. My Dad and Grandpa stood out in the yard keeping watch. My Mom and Grandma told us to stay in the bedroom and be ready to go to the basement. They listened on the radio. The multiple tornadoes skipped over us after devastating Linn Grove and the Berne Ind Area. The next day we drove around the Indiana and Ohio State Line area and saw the devastation. Furniture and appliances strewn all over the fields and trees and power lines down everywhere. A few days later when I returned to school, I learned that my classmate Gwen Wolfe's home had been hit and exploded. She lost her Mother and baby sister. Gwen's Father and 2 brothers and she survived. I was sad to here about everyone that had lost their lives. My cousin's Grandparents lived north of Berne Ind and their house was hit. They made it to their bathroom and stood in the bathtub. They saw the house literally blow away around them and they lost the 2nd floor. The house was later remodeled into a single story house. I have never forgotten that night.

Jamie Smith Taylor: I was only 3, but remember the panic from my Grandmother and Mom. We we're in Cedar crest at my Grandparents home. That's when the Markland Mall was still a field. I remembering being covered up with pillows and blankets while my Dad and Grandad watch it and brought in huge hailstones. I don't remember seeing the destruction, only from the papers. I never take any warnings or watches for granite today!

Diane Ladd Whitlock: Lived south of Swayzee. I was 17. Didn't know there was a tornado coming. The lights went out, and then we heard this awful sound. It really did sound like a freight train. We were OK. Drove toward Swayzee. Looked like a war zone. Friends lost their homes. One man died in his car trying to outrun it. Lost water and electricity for many days. Things were so different then. Have never understood the fascination with running to go see a tornado. It is terrible.

Bunnie Ryan Sullivan: I was 5 years old and we were on US 30, trying to get home to Hammond from Plymouth. My mom saw a funnel cloud about a half mile away and my dad pulled the car over. They argued about whether to turn the car around and go back to Plymouth. I watched the funnel spin slowly down and when it touched the ground, it immediately turned black. When my dad saw that, he turned the car around and sped back to Plymouth. I have been fascinated by tornados ever since and frequently dream about them.

Justin Wilson: My Ma & Pa(who's still alive) were at the McDonald's in Elkhart and got caught in it coming back. He said some man brought a fence post or poll in town that a piece of wheat through it that was on broken. Said it was incredible.

Rita Dean: I was 9 years old, my uncle and his family was living at midway trailer park when the tornadoes hit . They were very lucky they all made it out with just minor cuts and bruises. My father and other uncle were volunteers helping the emergency rescuers. I remember the look my father had when he was telling my mother of what all he had seen.

Trudy Nelson Boone: I was driving in the hailstorm and everyone in the car was screaming as it sounded like rifle shots hitting the car.

Curt Parsons: My mom and dad huddled my sisters and I like a group of little chicks in the basement of our farm hose as a twister roared past just 1/4 mile south . The sound was almost deafening, and then it was absolutely silent. Our neighbors barns were completely destroyed and my dad's work shed and corn crib layer over like falling domino's . I was twelve years old at the time and I still remember every detail vividly like it was yesterday.

Pat Howell: I was 11 years old & lived 2 blocks north of Main St. on the east end of Greentown. My dad rushed us to an east bedroom. We laid on the floor and listened to the roar come & go. After it passed we went outside and watched the tornado go east of town. Also picked up tennis ball size hail and put it in the freezer. One of my classmates & good friend, Debbie Sprague, was killed. I'll never forget that day.

Tom Tucker: I Remember that. We got out of school to volunteer to help.clean up. Area east of tracks by what is now Concord Mall, all houses, cars, clothes, mail etc spend for miles. Midway trailer park on 33 used to be where Sam's Club is, I think, trailer metal balled up like tinfoil. Any wood framing just kindling. Lost many people there.

Debbie Bailey: My parents told me the luckiest part of the whole thing was that it was a Sunday. Had it been a school day, it would've been far more devastating. The gym was where students went during tornado drills. It was the first part of the school to collapse when the tornado hit.

Sharon Richbar: My husband was a kid living in Goshen when that happened. He was at a church up by Bashor Road and Hwy 33. He said they could see the tornadoes coming down the tracks like the picture. He told me how they could see mobile homes going up in the air and exploding at what I seem to remember him calling the Midway Mobile Home Park. He said they looked like match boxes in the air.
Also, he cousin lived in Dunlap and her house was hit. One child was injured but I don't know how badly. They found him with the bathroom sink. Also, later someone up around Detroit sent them their checkbook as they had found it up there.

Debbie Forsythe Watters: I am a survivor of the Palm Sunday tornadoes, my brother Steve was one of the 271 killed that day. My family and I have a memorial which is on the very spot where we lived at the time of the tornadoes. I have teamed up with the Elkhart County Historical Society this year, and we have big plans for the 50th anniversary service. Our service will include Brian Wilkes from Fox 59 in Indianapolis as the mian speaker. He used to be at Fox 28 years ago and did a wonderful job on a TV special for the30th anniversary. We have 1, maybe 2 survivors who will be telling their stories, along with other special things for this event. I have been told by several people to contact you about this. And I saw your post on Facebook about wanting stories. So I thought I would write you, and give you information about it. It will be held on April 11, at 1:00 at the memorial. Its located on the corner of Cole street, and C.R. 45.

William Lower: I was 7 and interested in weather even at this time in my life me and mom stated out for evening church at the corner of New York street and Main in Goshen or SR15 a tree fell in front of us mom verily hit it. we went back home and told dad what happened dad had a stomach acke and I did to this told us that the weather was going to get really bad so dad took us to church. Church was at the corner of Oakridge and 3rd in Goshen at the time came the my dad and uncle came up stairs and told the Pastor to get everyone in the basement dad and uncle went outside to spot they saw the double tornado and so did I standing behind them I said holy shit and then they knew I was there they dragged me in side to the basement. the tornado missed us but went for another uncle Frankie in the I can't remember at this time what the name of the sub division was called; but he built the whole thing him self it was destroyed my dad went out to help him rebuild and came hoe missing 3 fingers he had to go to the hospital when he got out he went right back to help his brother.
third party my sister was married to Wayne Hartman he had a brother on Oslo fire who was hit by a bail of hay when he died they still found hay in his body I am 57 now my sister died last year dad died 2010, both uncles died no one told me I'm all alone now on this 50 anniversary you should get the hams to do a special event station there at NWS or on US33 where that picture was taken oh my second wife was the baby in the trailer park that got lifted taken out of the trailer and set down on the other side of the street she live in Elkhart now Star Tyson is her name have the FBI find her. haha wx9rub William D. Lower

MJK: This is a picture of myself in front of our barn, wife & 2 young boys were in basement of house which floor and all was taken, I was in the barn seen in picture, I also have a book with over 100 pictures of the Devils Lake Mi area in it

Snady Cooper: I was 9 years old when the tornados hit that Sunday. We lived in Greentown and I especially remember playing outside that day in the afternoon. The wind was blowing so hard I felt like I could just lean back and it would hold me up. Sometime in the late afternoon we went to visit my uncle and aunt who lived on Alto Road just a mile or so west of Kokomo. It got really dark and the wind, rain and lightning turned into something more fierce than I had ever seen. My aunt, my mother, my brother and I went to their basement but my dad and uncle were watching the storm from the garage door (which didn't make their wives very happy.) I remember coming upstairs because I wanted to see too and when there was a huge flash of lightning I saw the shape of a tornado high in the air in the direction of Kokomo to the east and I took off back to the basement. I don't remember how long the storms lasted but my parents were desperate to get back to Greentown. We made it back to our house on the north side of town and we didn't have much damage, but my grandmother's farm (Nellie Hiatt) was a couple miles east of town on IN 22. Her farm took a direct hit and not one structure was left standing. Hers was among many homes in the path of the storms on the highway. Her 2 story house, barn and outbuildings were all flattened. Thank God before my dad could go to look for her he found out someone had found her in the house and she was taken to the hospital. She was found under a large kitchen utility sink and ended up with cuts and bruises and a badly broken arm. We were so thankful she was spared and we had her for another 10 years. There wasn't much that could be salvaged from her home when her family sifted through the rubble. Something interesting happened a few weeks later when some kind of papers with her name and address were found by people in Ohio and they mailed them back to her.
At that age I couldn't really comprehend how many people died or were injured and how extensive and wide spread the damage was. I just knew from then on when the weatherman said the word "tornado" on TV, I was scared and I listened. I also realized much later that tornadoes had touched down all around where we were and God had chosen to keep us safe.

This page is a tribute to the victims and survivors on the deadliest tornado outbreak in history to strike the Great Lakes region.

Storm Damage Photos:

Branch County

Branch Newspaper

Elkhart County

Elkhart Newspaper

Grant County

Howard County

Other County

Tornado Photos

Portrait of Disaster

Meteorological Analysis

A powerful mid-latitude cyclone coupled with an intense upper level shortwave trough were responsible for the development of the historic Palm Sunday Tornado Outbreak. Very strong heat and moisture advection were ongoing into the midwest and southern Great Lakes prior to the development of supercells and tornadoes. A good parameter to view when examining this process is equivalent potential temperature (theta-e). Theta-e is a parameter that helps forecasters assess the thermodynamical environment of the atmosphere. Since it includes both moisture and heat, examining theta-e can help forecasters determine favored areas for convection in the presence of instability.

The sequence of surface maps shown in Fig. 1 show how the atmosphere quickly destabilized downstream of the surface cyclone over Iowa from mid morning through mid afternoon on April 11th. Note how rapidly the warm front mixed northward by afternoon.

Fig. 2 represents a synthesized sounding for KSBN. 23Z surface data was combined with merged sounding data from Peoria, IL (KPIA) and Flint, MI (KFNT) and then blended with NCEP-NCAR reanalysis data (50% each) at available levels to further improve the sounding data.

Fig. 1 15Z SFC Observations/Theta-e Analysis (shaded) Click for loop

Fig. 2 23Z KSBN Synthesized Sounding

An unseasonable strong low pressure system was located over western Iowa the morning of April 11, 1965 with a central pressure anomaly of ~25 mb (as compared to 1981-2010 climatology, not shown). A broad upper-level trough was located over the western United States, with a strong short-wave trough and accompanying strong mid-level jet streak in excess of 50 m s-1 (100 kt) situated from the southern Rockies northeastward into the southern Plains, Fig. 3. This strong jet streak facilitated the northeastward advection of an elevated mixed layer (EML) with steep mid-level lapse rates (Fig. 2) and a low-level moisture plume emanating from the Gulf of Mexico, (Fig. 4). The combination of this drier and warmer air aloft advecting out overtop the warming and moistening surface based air led to rapid destabilization by afternoon with explosive storm development noted in satellite imagery just after noon CST. In fact the first reported tornado occurred in northeast Iowa at 1255 pm CST (Fig. 5).

Fig. 3 April 11, 1965 12Z 500 mb Height/Theta/Isotachs (shaded)

Fig. 4 April 11, 1965 12Z 850 mb Height/Theta/RH

Fig. 5 April 11, 1965 1848Z Nephanalysis (Fujita et al., 1970)

The upper trough and associated surface low moved east into the western Great Lakes by 00 UTC April 12, 1965. By then the most intense portion of the mid-level jet 69 m s-1 (135 kt) had shifted northeast to near Peoria, IL, (Fig. 6). The nose of this feature was located over southern Michigan and northern Indiana, which is a highly favored location for severe convective storms and tornadoes (Clark et al. 2009). This location further coincided with the triple point or mesolow along the warm front at the surface, (Fig. 7).

Fig. 6 April 12, 1965 00Z 500 mb Height/Theta/Isotachs (shaded)

Fig. 7 April 11, 1965 23Z Surface map with radar data overlaid

The warm sector airmass immediately to the southeast of the surface cyclone became very unstable especially along and near the warm front and ahead of the cold front where forcing for ascent was maximized. 50 mb mean mixed layer parcels exhibited convective available potential enery (CAPE) in excess of 1000 J kg-1 (Fig. 8), with 0-6 km bulk wind shear in excess of 45 m s-1 (Fig. 9), both of which were exceptional values for anytime of the year. Furthermore the presence of the EML as denoted in 50 mb mean mixed layer convective inhibition (CIN), (Fig. 10), led to strong suppression of surface based convection and prevented more upscale growth of initial supercell storms into an organized squall line (Banacos et al. 2010). Thus without much competition, supercell storms that developed in this environment exhibited considerable longevity (individual storms persisted for up to 4.5 hours).

Fig. 8 April 11, 1965 23Z 50 mb Mixed Layer CAPE

Fig. 9 April 11, 1965 23Z 0-6 km Shear

Fig. 10 April 11, 1965 23Z 50 mb Mixed Layer CIN

One of the most interesting and unique aspects of this storm system was the prevalence of dual mesocyclones and multiple-tornadoes from a single tornado cyclone, the most famous of which was the Dunlap, IN twin funnel, (Fig. 11). Single tornado cyclones were reported with thunderstorms in Indiana and Ohio, and damage suggests possibly over Illinois too (Fujita et al. 1970). The presence of these and multiple mesocyclones points to the possible presence of upscale vortex growth or vortex breakdown (Agee et al. 1976; Wurman and Kosiba 2013). Track evidence across Indiana confirms that supercells were cyclic and contained long occlusion cycles (OCM) to near steady-state non-cycling phases based on some of the very long tornado path lengths that were observed (145.3 km), (Alderman et al. 2005). Alderman et al. found that when lower tropospheric shear is increased for given hodographs that support OCM, a slowing or a cease in mesocyclone cycling typically can result, especially in environments that contain high values of shear. Hence, the incredibly strong ambient shear (Fig. 9) during the Palm Sunday event may in fact explain the multitude of long tornado cycles observed that day (1-3 hours), perhaps similar to the Tri-State tornado of March 18, 1925 (Maddox et al. 2013). In some instances, as with storms J and K (Fujita et al. 1970), seen in Google map below, separate tornadoes from separate parent low-level mesocyclones (tornado cyclones) were evidenced to be occurring simultaneously as inferred in double hook structures seen in radar and track data (Fig. 12). One hypothesis for the prevalence of single tornado cyclones and multiple low-level mesocyclones during the Palm Sunday event could be related to the speed of storm motions and hinted at in Alderman et al. (2005). Storm motions in the KSBN synthesized sounding were very fast. Using the Bunkers et al. (2000) right-moving motion method, supercell speeds were around 30 m s-1 (60 kt). Perusal of Weather Bureau statements from April 11, 1965 indicate storm motion estimates of 18-22 m s-1 (40-50 mph). However, using tornado start/end times from NCDC's storm report data puts some storm motions near 27 m s-1 (60 mph). Perhaps Weather Bureau meteorologists were hesitant to use faster storm speeds given their uncommon occurrence. Regardless, the fast storm motions could have allowed supercell tornado cyclones to remain in a steady-state phase, with low-level mesocyclones and associated tornadoes able to "grow upscale" given the lack of rear flank downdraft or other environmental interference (mesocylone cycling), similar to Burgess 1982.

Fig. 11 Dunlap, Indiana Twin Tornadoes - Paul Huffman (Elkhart Truth)

Fig. 12 1852 CST KDTX WSR-57 Radar Image

The April 11, 1965 tornado outbreak had several key tornado producing ingredients in place, which worked synergistically to produce multiple violent and destructive tornadoes. A strongly sheared environment to the degree seen in the Palm Sunday outbreak is rare. Perhaps the most uncommon aspect of this event was the extremely strong shear and deep low level moisture that were coincident under the EML this far north for mid April. Although rare, these types of environment have been observed before and led to other significant tornado outbreaks in the Great Lakes region (March 28 1920, April 2 1956, April 3 1974). Typically Gulf of Mexico moisture gets diluted by cold frontal intrusions in early spring. However, a composite analysis (not shown) of the upper level flow and moisture pattern the previous month leading up to the outbreak illustrate that flow over the southern United States was generally zonal with a positive height anomaly noted over the southeastern United States, similar to what Corfidi et al. (2010) found in the April 3-4, 1974 Super Outbreak.

The science of forecasting has progressed considerably since 1965. Forecasters now can correctly anticipate outbreaks like this days in advance thanks to advances in computer modelling. In addition, advances in radar technology combined with the expansion of surface observations and spotter networks relaying near realtime storm report information, has leveled the playing field with mother nature and will certainly save lives in future outbreaks.

Storm reports were gathered from NCDC. However, owing to the limitation of storm report gathering in the 1960's, coupled with the lack of tornado track details from NCDC, additional tornado track information was gleaned from Fujita et al. (1970) and Grazulis (1993), both of which provided exceptionally detailed track information. This information was combined to create a Google Earth keyhole markup language (KML) file of storm reports and tornado tracks.